Self-awareness: Tips for understanding your personality type

Your personality type is a huge determining factor when it comes to how you interact with other people and the world around you. We have developed an excellent understanding of what characterises human beings and the five-factor model is a great example of the knowledge we have of human traits.

How does the big five model characterise our personalities and explain our distinct differences?

Openness to experience
How open to new experiences are you? One of the traits is openness to experience, which defines how you react to new circumstances.

Those who are open to experience, it is said you’re curious rather than cautious. It’s sometimes said those who are more open to experience can be perceived as unpredictable or to be lacking focus, though it’s not all bad. This trait has been highly linked to intelligence; those high in openness appreciate the intellect much more and tend to seek more creative paths such as becoming a writer, artist or musician.

Conscientiousness
Have you often been described as easy-going or careless? Or perhaps people have called you controlling?

Conscientiousness is split into “industriousness” and “orderliness.” When looking at this trait, you may want to look at how serious you take your obligations, particularly those you have with other people. 

Agreeableness
People who are agreeable are seen to be kind and warm, they are empathetic by nature. The opposite could be said for those who are disagreeable.

There are lower-limit traits such as trust, compliance, modesty and straightforwardness, which make up how agreeable you are. Do you tend to hold you own ground, or do you go with the crowd?

Extraversion
This trait refers to the energy and how much you feel positive emotion. It’s very much defined by your assertiveness, sociability and how you are stimulated by the company of others.

How much do you enjoy the company of other people? This will help you understand how extraverted you are. Understanding this will allow you to deepen your relationships with others tremendously, being more flexible in your approach to how extraverted you can become (or holding yourself back a little as an extravert).

Neuroticism
Anger, anxiety, depression and vulnerability are feelings we all come across in our lives. Your neuroticism defines how strongly you feel those emotions.

Think about how harshly you respond to negative emotion. Are you easily upset, or are you seen as emotionally numb? These are either of the extremes, analyse where you sit in the spectrum.

There are some distinct ways that you can become more effective by understanding your personality type:

• The choices you make within your career.
• Increase your self-awareness and emotional stability.
• Improve your relationships with other people.
• Make a change to the way you react to negative (or positive) emotion.
• Understand the reasons behind your behaviour.
• Take more responsibility for your own thought patterns and behaviour.

Admit to yourself who are. Become comfortable in your own skin, and act with confidence knowing that you are unique in every way.